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Other Voices
Usually, these studies are full of gloom and doom. If you eat bacon, which I love, you're going to die. If you drink coffee, which I do, you're going to die. If you don't get 30 minutes of exercise every day, which I don't, you're going to die. That's why I was excited to see the study a few weeks ago that showed more and more people are living alone and loving it. According to the article I read in USA Today, about 27.2 million Americans are living by themselves, accounting for about 26 percent of all households. This is good news to me because I live alone, if you don't count Glory, the black and white Springer spaniel who lives at my house. There are many reasons why people are choosing to live alone. We're waiting longer to get married, or aren't getting married at all. We're making more money, which means we don't need roommates. And, of course, sometimes we have trouble finding anyone who's willing to live with us. I actually love living alone. For instance, I can leave my dirty clothes piled on the bedroom floor, and there's no one to ask, "Why are you such a slob? Can't you pick up your clothes? What are you, 12?" If you live alone, the phone is always for you. You have no one to blame but yourself if you come home and find a week's worth of dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen. If you find a hair in your dinner, you know for sure whose hair it is. Unless, of course, you live with a Springer spaniel. Then it could be - and probably is - hers. There is never an argument about what to watch on TV. If you want to watch football all day Sunday, who's going to stop you? For that matter, you could watch "Dancing with the Stars" and no one would ever have to know. But it's not all fun and games. There are a few drawbacks to being the only person in the house. For instance, there's no one to help with the household chores, which means you have to do all the dusting, vacuuming, mopping, sweeping and cleaning by yourself. Cleaning really isn't that bad if you do it on a consistent basis. But if you don't, green stuff will start growing in the bathroom. Cooking can be difficult when you live alone. I like to cook, but it's difficult to cook in single portions. Too often when I cook, I end up with enough leftovers to last a week. But I don't like to eat the same thing every day for a week, so I end up just leaving the leftovers in the fridge. After a few weeks, I'm forced to clean it out. My rule of thumb is if something is green that used to be brown or something is brown that used to be green, it gets tossed. As a result, single people eat out a lot, or use the microwave to cook meals that come out of a cardboard box. Laundry is also a chore. If I could, I'd own enough clothes that I could wear a different outfit for a month, not because I'm a clotheshorse, but because washing clothes is time consuming and boring. Washing your clothes is bad enough, but periodically, you have to clean the sheets on your bed, which is worse. Sheets should be disposable. These drawbacks to single living may also explain another study I saw recently. It said that men who live alone are more likely to suffer from depression and are more likely to die younger than their married friends. I suspect this is because no one is around to tell you to eat your vegetables, to get eight hours of sleep and to get plenty of exercise. No one to tell you to quit eating bacon and drinking coffee, because it will kill you. I hope, of course, that I'll be the exception to this study. I get regular checkups, I'm eating better these days and I take regular walks with Glory. I've lost a good bit of weight lately, and I feel better, so I've got my fingers crossed.
On the other hand, if us single guys are destined to die young and end is near, maybe it'll get here before we have to bite the bullet and change the sheets again.
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